Agricultural Water Enhancement Program

The Department of Agriculture National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) administered the Agricultural Water Enhancement Program (CFDA 10.925) to promote ground and surface water conservation and improved water quality on agricultural lands, with the most recent grant award dated September 17, 2018—over eight years ago.

Program activity has stalled. The portfolio shows 44 cooperative agreements totaling $849 thousand in federal obligations across a fifteen-year span from 2009 to 2018. Award cadence was highly irregular: three awards in 2009, one in 2010, a spike of 37 awards in 2011, two in 2012, and a single award in 2018. No grant opportunities have been posted or awarded since 2018, indicating the program is no longer actively soliciting applications.

The program funded water conservation initiatives on agricultural lands through cooperative agreements exclusively. Representative 2011 awards included a $131 thousand agreement for agricultural water enhancement (Cooperative Agreement 0000000000725390), a $100 thousand agreement (0000000000725394), and a $42,480 agreement (0000000000727180). Most individual awards ranged from roughly $1,600 to $40,000, though the outlier 2018 award for archaeology assistance obligated $180,000 and suggests scope drift or data quality issues in the portfolio. Awards typically ran twelve to twenty-four months, with completion dates between 2012 and 2015.

NRCS was the sole funding agency, accounting for all 44 awards and 100 percent of federal dollars obligated.

Do not pursue this program. The eight-year gap since the most recent award, combined with the absence of posted opportunities or recent solicitation activity, signals the program is inactive or has been merged into EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program, under which AWEP was authorized as a component). Prospective applicants should contact NRCS directly to confirm current program status and any successor funding vehicles for agricultural water conservation.